Section 3 Flashcards
What is following the “principle of charity”
before attributing bias to someone, try to interpret their reasoning in the best possible light.
What is confirmation bias
the natural tendency to seek out evidence supporting our beliefs and ignoring evidence that undermines our beliefs.
What are cognitive biases
widespread tendencies to deviate from rational belief-forming practices
What is “alief”
refers to the automatic belief-like attitudes that can explain how our instinctual responses can conflict with our reasoned-out beliefs. Like some people will feel shaky and nervous when standing securely behind a guardrail at the edge of a great height, even if they know that they are perfectly safe.
What are mental heuristics used for
Rather than spend all the time and energy it takes to make the best decision, we can use a heuristic to make a pretty good decision.
What is the representativeness heuristic
The basic idea is that when faced with a new situation, we find the nearest prototype in our mind and use what we know about that prototype to help us understand what is going on right in front of us.
What is “anchoring and adjustment”
we tend to anchor to the first piece of information we have about a new domain (even if it is not presented as a fact) and then only “adjust” up or down from there.
Do you think more than 10% or fewer than 10% of Australians support a change in their leadership? Now, what do you think the actual percentage is?
You might have guessed 20% of Australians, but you probably did not guess 80% or even 60% or maybe even 40%.
What is the availability heuristic
What you can think of is all there is. What occurs to you in the moment is all you need to think of to make good judgments.
What is selection bias
when the sample we generalize from is not representative of the total population in some important respect.
